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The population of bipolar cells in the rabbit retina
Author(s) -
MacNeil Margaret A.,
Heussy John K.,
Dacheux Ramon F.,
Raviola Elio,
Masland Richard H.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of comparative neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 209
eISSN - 1096-9861
pISSN - 0021-9967
DOI - 10.1002/cne.20063
Subject(s) - retina , biology , golgi apparatus , cell type , population , rabbit (cipher) , cell , retinal , microbiology and biotechnology , neuroscience , biochemistry , statistics , demography , mathematics , sociology
The population of bipolar cells in the rabbit retina was studied using Golgi impregnation and photocatalyzed filling of single cells with dihydrorhodamine, a quantitative sampling technique. The Golgi method revealed the morphology and stratification of cells in detail. The photofilling method allowed us to estimate the frequency of the cell types. From a sample of 243 Golgi‐impregnated bipolar cells and 107 photofilled cells, we identified 1 type of rod bipolar cell and 12 types of cone bipolar cells. An analysis based on retinal coverage indicates that this number of types could be contained within the number of bipolar cells known to exist. The dendrites of most cone bipolars contacted all the cones within the individual cone bipolar cell's dendritic field. Types of bipolar cell were encountered at roughly similar frequency, without any one type predominating. The rabbit retina thus contains about a dozen parallel and roughly equipotent through‐pathways. J. Comp. Neurol. 472:73–86, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.